## Co-Founder of Trump-Backed Crypto Firm Threatens SEC Whistleblower Case

Jean-Francois Amyot, co-founder of the Canadian crypto processor **Alt5 Sigma**, has threatened to file a **whistleblower complaint** with the SEC over suspected **irregularities** in the company's public reporting. This development comes after Alt5 Sigma struck a partnership with the Trump family’s blockchain group, **World Liberty Financial**. 

According to court filings, Amyot, who co-founded Alt5 in 2018, intends to pursue this action, highlighting potential issues in the **crypto industry's regulatory compliance**. The case could draw significant attention due to the involvement of high-profile political figures and raises questions about **transparency** and **accountability** in cryptocurrency firms.

 A co-founder of a crypto company that struck a partnership with the Trump family’s blockchain group World Liberty Financial has threatened to file a whistleblower complaint over suspected irregularities in the public reporting of the crypto company, Alt5 Sigma, according to court filings. 

 Jean-Francois Amyot, who co-founded the Canadian crypto processor Alt5 in 2018, said he intended to file

Trump-Backed Crypto Co-Founder Threatens SEC Whistleblower Case Over Alleged Irregularities

Following the numbers suggests Tristan Thompson is nearing the end of his basketball career. While the 6ft 9in center once regularly played more than 80 games in a regular season, he's hit new career lows, appearing just 40 times on court during the 2024-2025 season. Following the money, however, suggests Thompson is pivoting into a new career. He's rebranded as a **crypto investor, consultant and brand ambassador**, bringing his relative cultural cache to the blockchain. Now the host of his own podcast, Courtside Crypto, he has made frequent appearances with other crypto celebrities, such as at the Nasdaq in September, when he celebrated the IPO of an explicitly nationalist Bitcoin mining operation alongside Eric Trump; Thompson has also developed a crypto startup slated to launch in 2026.

In 2025, crypto is back in style in Washington and among a growing set in Hollywood, where Thompson lives adjacent to the Kardashian clan, some of whom have been crypto spokespeople. **Donald Trump has reversed Joe Biden's legal offensive against crypto**, debuting his own token, $Trump, before his inauguration, and rolling back government actions against the industry, which heavily supported him during his bid for the presidency. Celebrities have likewise returned to hawking cryptocurrency projects or launching tokens of their own.

![Iggy Azalea in North Hollywood, California, in 2025.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ff332dfc2ee3420a996aa4d6f683c426728639ae/0_104_1704_1703/master/1704.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)

Thompson is not the only pro sports figure diving in. Lamar Odom, a former basketball star, launched a crypto coin in May that partially funds addiction recovery, and Mike Tyson, the former boxing legend, is a spokesperson for Naga, a Robinhood-like trading platform that includes cryptocurrency products. Outside sports, Thompson stands shoulder to shoulder, metaphorically speaking, with figures such as Iggy Azalea, an Australian rapper, who, in addition to her work as the spokesperson for her $MOTHER crypto token, was featured alongside Thompson and Eric Trump as a keynote speaker at the 2025 Blockchain Futurist Conference last month. At the November conference, Azalea was named the creative director of Thrust, a new platform allowing celebrities to issue their own branded meme coins, a subset of cryptocurrencies that are billed as purely speculative and are not enforced as securities. Streaming personality N3on was the first to launch his meme coin on the Thrust platform. Actor Megan Fox will be next.

"A few years ago, most celebrity crypto stuff came off like quick stunts, and now, people expect an actual plan and some kind of real value for communities, not just a splashy moment," Azalea told the Guardian via text. "Yes, I think celebrities are still curious about the space, but are a lot more careful. No one wants to be linked to something chaotic or sloppy."

Through limits on how token issuers can sell their own shares, the project claims to mitigate the potential for token collapses and pump-and-dump schemes. The industry may not have entirely reformed, though: Azalea's $MOTHER meme coin faced allegations of insider trading almost as soon as it launched in May. Azalea has denied dumping $2m worth of tokens and has disclaimed any control over, or knowledge of, the people who owned them.

## Crypto Spring

Celebrities were enamored with crypto schemes at the peak of the market in 2021, when Matt Damon appeared in a Super Bowl ad for a crypto company. But after the fraud-induced collapse of crypto exchange FTX, A-listers faced a wave of lawsuits and penalties, part of a wider regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrency under the former president. Celebrities listed as defendants in crypto-related court cases included Tom Brady, Shohei Ohtani, Steph Curry, Shaquille O'Neal, Naomi Osaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Floyd Mayweather, and Kim Kardashian – sister to Khloé Kardashian, with whom Tristan Thompson has had a tumultuous relationship and two children. In 2022, Kim Kardashian settled with the SEC for $1.26m over charges in connection with illegally promoting a crypto security, EthereumMax.

The rich and famous backed off promoting digital currency in the ensuing years. The Kardashian case "tamped down on all celebrity involvement" in crypto, according to Dr William Mullins, a professor of finance at UC San Diego studying the effects of celebrity influence on individuals' crypto investments. Celebrities in the crypto realm can reach hundreds of millions of followers cheaply via social media, and they can easily establish a narrative since most fiduciary advisors steer clear of the sector, he said. Directing follower attention can be incredibly lucrative, since crypto investments are largely a "coordination game" driven by demand, rather than underlying fundamentals, Mullins added, making crypto "extraordinarily vulnerable to celebrity influence".

![Khloé Kardashian at the 2022 Met Gala.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6544bdabcec106f2e9e9ea52f2eabd58d7697ee8/0_0_3280_2202/master/3280.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)

"A lot of people are more comfortable when the President of the United States launches a meme coin," said Jake Antifaev, the co-founder and CEO of Thrust.

$Trump demonstrated meme coins' lucrative potential, though its windfall may have come at the expense of other celebrities' crypto ambitions. In May, Trump personally hosted a dinner for the 220 largest holders of $Trump, and held a private "reception" for the largest 25 buyers. These individuals collectively spent around $148m purchasing $Trump tokens, the Guardian previously reported. According to Andrew Duca, the founder of crypto-focused tax platform Awaken, the $Trump token "sucked up so much liquidity" that it caused other meme coins' price to fall, which may have dissuaded other celebrities from launching their own tokens.

Duca said celebrity activity in crypto in 2025 is markedly different from what we saw in 2021. "Last cycle, you were getting more A-list celebs … and this cycle, you basically only saw the griftier celebs actually participate," he said. These celebrities' endorsements in 2025 primarily center around meme coins, rather than more traditional cryptocurrencies or crypto exchanges, Duca added.

According to Paul Afshar, chief marketing officer at Paybis, a crypto exchange, celebrities are opting for meme coin launches because "the economics are not the same" compared with the crypto-endorsement craze of 2021: major crypto companies once offered eight-figure endorsement deals, but those big-budget campaigns have dried up, as they failed to retain users and were eventually seen as too legally risky.

![Donald Trump at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, in July 2024.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8cc6236437d9d2fdcdff2f127b87e0cf8fe1fc27/0_0_2200_1467/master/2200.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)

"So, instead of coordinated campaigns backed by crypto companies, we've got celebrities trying to monetize their own audiences directly through token launches," Afshar told the Guardian via email. "It's lower budget, higher risk, and reaches far fewer people than the 2021 celeb craze ever did."

During his first tenure in office, Trump was a vocal crypto skeptic, calling Bitcoin "a scam against the dollar". After entering office a second time, though, his administration rescinded a range of regulatory bulletins and policies perceived as restricting the growth of the crypto industry. His U-turn has also come with a windfall in other crypto-related deals and tie-ups for Trump family businesses – not just the $Trump meme coin, or the $Melania meme coin tied to the first lady. Estimates suggest that the September launch of another Trump-affiliated crypto token, $WLFI, may have buoyed the Trumps' net worth by as much as $5bn, and may have become the Trump family's most valuable asset – edging out their real estate portfolio. The Genius Act, the first major federal law to explicitly legalize blockchain-based products in the US, which Trump signed into law in July, did not bar the relatives of elected officials from engaging in crypto-related business. Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, has denied that the president ever engaged in a conflict of interest.

In an interview with the Guardian, Thompson said he thinks many figures in the crypto industry have been unfairly punished in the past, and he welcomes Trump's enthusiasm for the industry, including his pardon in October of Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of crypto platform Binance, who had pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering laws for failing to report suspicious transactions with organizations such as al-Qaida.

Thompson is familiar with how quickly fortunes can change in the cryptocurrency industry. In February, he debuted Tracy AI, an automated sportscasting platform, and served as its chief content officer and lead adviser. The startup already appears defunct: its website no longer functions, and the company has published instructions on how to transfer $TRACY, the platform's crypto token, into other major crypto denominations.

![Tristan Thompson at All Star Tracy AI in San Francisco, California.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a3faaf415ee1c3f39a1b7e0cfd32352751dd993f/0_0_3648_4032/master/3648.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)

Additional celebrity activity in the crypto sector may come through two paths, said Duca, the crypto-taxation entrepreneur. More buttoned-up ventures, such as companies working in stablecoins, a kind of cryptocurrency pegged to a more stable asset like the dollar, may launch ad campaigns with well-regarded brand ambassadors, similar to Jennifer Garner's deal with Capital One, he theorized. Duca also foresees celebrities tying up with prediction markets like Polymarket or Kalshi, especially sports stars, whose followers may use gambling platforms like DraftKings. Prediction-market sites have "so much cash", and already have endorsements in play with tech figures, he added.

Thompson's upcoming venture, Basketball.fun, is a crypto-inflected hybrid of DraftKings and Polymarket that is slated to launch early next year. In Thompson's words, the company will "be a disruptor to traditional gambling" by adding a "prediction market component, because obviously, right now, the prediction market is going crazy". The platform will use a fantasy league-type user experience as its foundation, minting a meme coin assigned to every player in the NBA, and allowing users on the platform to determine the value of the player by trading those currencies, rather than using the weighted scores companies like ESPN and FanDuel assign to a player. The Polymarket-esque prediction market component lets users set their predictions on the future value of players' coins. In aggregate, Thompson thinks these efforts can help dis-intermediate the current sports-watching experience, refracted through broadcast networks.

Speaking to the Guardian the same morning, Chauncey Billups, a former NBA star, was arrested for his alleged role in an illegal gambling scheme – while several insider gambling investigations are ongoing in the NBA and Major League Baseball – Thompson emphasized that NBA players and other sports professionals should not bet on their own games. At the same time, he criticized sports networks' prominent display of betting products during broadcasts. "Why can't we challenge [the networks] and give the people an opportunity to be in control and take back their rights?" he asked.

Thompson, who recorded a special episode of his podcast from the White House in July, said his affinity for the Trump presidency goes beyond their shared passion for crypto: "I stand by what President Trump's about," he said. He cited the Trump administration's slate of tariffs as one path towards empowerment, and pointed to the economies of Israel, Russia, and Dubai as ones where "they [successfully] keep money circulating within the country" to generate wealth.

"I believe President Trump is trying to do it when he says, 'make America great again'," said Thompson, who was born in Canada and became a US citizen in 2020. "And I think what he's trying to do, it's very similar to how it was when the early settlers came around, where the money was circulating [internally]. That's when America was at its peak … there was so much money being made, so he's trying to just bring that back. History repeats itself."

From athletes such as Tristan Thompson to artists such as Iggy Azalea, celebrities have returned to hawking crypto

Celebrities Are Flocking Back to Crypto in Trump's Second Term - Here's Why

Brazil's largest privately-owned asset manager, **Itaú Asset Management**, has made a significant recommendation for investors: allocate **1% to 3% of portfolios to Bitcoin** (BTC) as a strategic hedge. This advice aligns with global trends, as major players like **BlackRock and Bank of America** have also suggested small allocations to the cryptocurrency.

In a year-end note, **Renato Eid**, head of beta strategies and responsible investment at Itaú, highlighted Bitcoin's **lack of correlation with traditional local assets**, making it an effective diversification tool. He emphasized a measured approach, not making crypto the core of a portfolio but using it as a complementary asset to absorb shocks from **currency depreciation and global volatility**.

Eid warned against market timing and advocated for a disciplined, long-term mindset. He suggested setting a strategic allocation, such as 1%–3%, maintaining a long-term horizon, and resisting short-term noise. This strategy can act as a partial hedge and provide access to global returns, especially as traditional asset correlations become less reliable.

For Brazilian investors, the ride has been bumpy due to currency fluctuations. Products like **BITI11, a bitcoin ETF traded in Brazil**, saw performance affected by the weakening fiat currency. However, Bitcoin's global nature offered some insulation during periods of stress, such as late 2024.

This recommendation underscores Bitcoin's growing acceptance as a **legitimate asset class** for portfolio diversification, backed by institutional support and its potential to mitigate risks in volatile markets.

The recommendation is in line with other global asset managers like BlackRock and Bank of America suggesting small portfolio allocations to the largest cryptocurrency.

Brazil's Top Asset Manager Urges Investors: Allocate Up to 3% in Bitcoin to Shield Against Currency and Market Volatility

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) has just flashed a familiar technical signal on the charts that could signal a major price movement. The 3-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) has dropped to its lowest level since late 2024, matching the exact extreme reading that triggered last year's massive rally.

Back in November 2024, XRP's 3-day RSI bottomed around 39 before the coin surged from $0.50 to $3.40—marking a **580% gain** by January 2025. The same 3-day RSI patterns are showing up again, with XRP's latest 3-day candle closing with the RSI crossing its signal line, creating an identical bullish structure that triggered the November 2024 breakout.

![Charts of financial instruments with various type of indicators including volume analysis for professional technical analysis on the monitor of a computer](https://247wallst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/shutterstock-279995282-huge-licensed-scaled.jpg)

## What the 3-Day RSI Means
The 3-day RSI is the Relative Strength Index calculated on a 3-day chart, which smooths out daily price noise. The RSI is a 0-100 momentum indicator where readings below 30 mean **oversold conditions** (bearish exhaustion has set in) and readings above 70 mean **overbought conditions** (buying may be overdone).

When a 3-day RSI drops this low, it suggests XRP has become deeply oversold on that timeframe. This condition often sets up a strong bounce as sellers run out of steam and buyers step in.

## Current RSI Setup vs November 2024
![Technical price graph and indicator, red and green candlestick chart on blue theme screen, market volatility, up and down trend. Stock trading, crypto currency background.](https://247wallst.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/shutterstock-2159962175-huge-licensed-1-scaled.jpg)

XRP's current 3-day RSI has dropped to its lowest reading since November 2024. Since the July 2025 peak at $3.66, the 3-day RSI has declined to approximately 39—the lowest in over a year. When the RSI hit 39 in November 2024, XRP jumped roughly 580% from $0.50 to $3.40 by January 2025.

Analysts see a close match between the current setup and that pattern. This RSI signal has proven reliable across multiple timeframes—appearing in April, June, and November 2024, with each instance triggering a major rally.

## Five Technical Indicators Pointing to a Bullish Setup
![Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investing concept. Cryptocurrency golden coin with gold ripple symbol. Rise and fall charts of alt coins.](https://247wallst.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/shutterstock-2144475293-huge-licensed-scaled.jpg)

Several technical indicators on the XRP price chart are flashing bullish signals. Here are the key patterns traders are watching:

### 3-Day RSI at Multi-Month Lows
XRP's 3-day RSI has dropped near 39, matching its lowest reading since November 2024. Historical price action shows that this oversold condition marked a turning point. When the 3-day RSI hit this low last year, XRP quickly reversed into a parabolic rally.

### Recurring 3-Day RSI Bull Crossover
Traders have spotted a recurring chart pattern on XRP's 3-day chart. In early December 2025, XRP closed a 3-day candle above key resistance while its RSI crossed above its moving average. This exact setup also occurred in November 2024, April 2025, and June 2025—each time right before a significant rally.

### Weekly RSI Golden Cross
On the weekly chart, crypto analyst Dark Defender points out that XRP just formed a rare weekly RSI golden cross. This happens when the 14-week RSI rises above its 34-week moving average. That same RSI cross first appeared on November 4, 2024, right before XRP's 500%+ surge into early 2025.

### Bullish Chart Patterns: Double Bottom & Divergence
Longer-term charts are showing classic bull signals too. Analysts note a double-bottom formation with hidden bullish divergence on XRP's weekly chart. Price formed two similar lows, while the RSI made higher lows. This out-of-phase pattern often signals an incoming breakout.

### Volatility Breakout Squeeze
XRP has been consolidating for approximately 32 weeks, with volatility dropping dramatically. The Bollinger Bands are now at their tightest in over eight months, and this kind of volatility squeeze usually comes right before sharp moves in either direction.

## XRP Price Prediction: Late 2025 Through Early 2026
Despite this technical backdrop pointing higher, XRP's price could still move in different directions. Here are three possible scenarios for the XRP price heading into 2026:

### Bullish Prediction
The optimistic path sees XRP reclaiming and exceeding prior highs. A decisive break above $3.33, the January 2025 peak, would open the path to $5.85—the 261.8% Fibonacci extension level. Analysts project even higher targets in a strong crypto bull market.

This scenario places XRP around $8, while extreme technical analysis points to upside toward $15. Under favorable conditions—sustained ETF demand, expanding institutional adoption, and stable macro conditions—XRP could enter the mid- to high-single-digit range by early 2026.

### Base Prediction
The middle-ground view sees XRP consolidating with modest gains. XRP could trade in a $2-$4 range into late 2025, gradually testing key resistance around $2.70-$3.30. A relief rally might lift XRP into the low single digits when broader crypto markets rise.

### Bearish Prediction
The downside view assumes XRP fails to break higher. Adverse U.S. policy or a broader crypto selloff could push XRP back toward last year's lows around $1.60-$2.00. If support near $2 breaks, XRP could slide into the mid-$1 range.

XRP's 3-day RSI hit its lowest level since late 2024, the same setup that preceded November's 580% rally from $0.50 to $3.40, analysts say.

XRP's 3-Day RSI Hits Historic Lows: Is a 580% Rally Imminent?

Most investors aren't looking for cryptoassets to buy so that they can feel the thrill of risk, yet that's exactly what many end up experiencing.

On that note, it's pretty easy to take on more risk than intended, even if you're sticking to mainstream cryptocurrencies like **XRP** and **Cardano**. So if you're trying to decide which form of risk you actually want to own, it's worth taking a look under the hood with these two assets.

![Investors watching a presentation around a table](https://g.foolcdn.com/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fg.foolcdn.com%2Feditorial%2Fimages%2F846421%2Finvestors-watch-a-presentation-around-a-table.jpg&w=3840&op=resize)

## XRP is a Fintech Platform Rather Than a Concentrated Bet

The **XRP Ledger (XRPL)** was originally designed by its issuer, Ripple, to make cross-border money transfers cheaper and faster than legacy payment networks such as SWIFT. Ripple's current cross-border solution routes both stablecoins and XRP across the ledger, with ample on and off ramps back into local currencies for banks and fintechs.

At today's market cap of roughly $120 billion, XRP is a large-cap crypto asset with a deep existing holder base. That scale doesn't make it resistant to downturns or even collapses, but it does mean that there's already a substantial amount of capital committed to the network.

Ripple has also spent the past couple of years broadening XRP's economic base to make it a more attractive tool for **financial institutions** to use in their backend workflows. The company launched a U.S. dollar stablecoin in late 2024 and its market cap already exceeds $1 billion, making it one of the larger dollar-pegged coins available.

The stablecoin is being stitched directly into the Ripple Payments service so that institutions can use it for cross-border settlements and treasury operations rather than holding working capital balances at multiple correspondent banks in each jurisdiction where they do business. There's also an ongoing pilot program testing it in a real-world payment processing situation for a major credit card provider.

But XRP still carries a lot of risk. Despite its institutional proclivities, it's exposed to crypto market cycles, potential policy reversals, and the chance that banks decide stablecoin-based systems are more trouble than they are worth. And it's far from the only fintech platform that's vying for a share of the capital that the banks have on hand.

## Cardano is Chasing AI-Native Payments

**Cardano**, in contrast to XRP, is a general-purpose smart contract chain that is not leading in any of today's dominant narratives. Its decentralized finance (DeFi) activity and app ecosystem lag far behind the leading chains, with a modest number of active decentralized applications and a relatively small pool of capital in its protocols.

And, with a market cap of about $15 billion, Cardano is an order of magnitude smaller than XRP, which could imply that it will grow more proportionally—or that it will be more volatile and experience more downside. That smaller base, combined with a slower-growing ecosystem, increases the pressure for a big, new catalyst.

The chain's new integration with the **x402 payment standard** is exactly that kind of swing. If you aren't familiar, x402 is a way for websites to request payment directly in a user's web browser in response to attempting to access specific content or data, all without an account or any signups needed. It is designed to let clients, including artificial intelligence (AI) agents, send highly convenient and instant stablecoin-based payments over the web.

If Cardano's x402 gambit pays off, theoretically it would enable a kind of **AI-native economy** built on continuous micropayments that would be settled using Cardano, which could boost the demand for the coin by quite a bit. More on-chain commerce would mean more fees, demand for ADA coins as a staking and governance asset, and reasons for developers to build Cardano-native services that plug into the x402 flow.

The catch is that almost all of this is speculative. Nothing guarantees that Cardano will be the main place where AI agents choose to pay. The chain also still needs to prove that it can attract and retain enough developers to turn the x402 integration into real applications, not just a roadmap.

So while x402 gives ADA a fresh story and genuine upside, it also concentrates a lot of its forward-looking investment thesis into one emerging standard that may or may not catch on in the way advocates hope.

And, in light of everything else about Cardano, that's what makes it a much riskier coin to buy now. If it manages to gain significant traction, that might change, but for now, it's probably better to avoid buying it, as it's simply too much risk to take on for an uncertain reward.

When you know what you're buying, it's easier to sleep at night.

Trump-Backed Crypto Co-Founder Threatens SEC Whistleblower Case Over Alleged Irregularities

Summary:

Co-founder of Alt5 Sigma threatens SEC whistleblower case over reporting irregularities

Firm had a partnership with Trump family's World Liberty Financial blockchain group

Jean-Francois Amyot intends to file complaint based on court filings

Incident underscores regulatory compliance issues in the crypto industry

Co-Founder of Trump-Backed Crypto Firm Threatens SEC Whistleblower Case

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Celebrities Are Flocking Back to Crypto in Trump's Second Term - Here's Why

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Celebrities Are Flocking Back to Crypto in Trump's Second Term - Here's Why

Brazil's Top Asset Manager Urges Investors: Allocate Up to 3% in Bitcoin to Shield Against Currency and Market Volatility

XRP's 3-Day RSI Hits Historic Lows: Is a 580% Rally Imminent?

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